Dip
by Queen Isolde
Summary: It had been a very strange dream, to say the least. MelVidanric fluff. I disclaim. Complete.
1. Dip

Sort a stole the idea from a movie I just recently saw called Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. I'm changing the scene quite a bit from the movie, but it was the inspiration for this. Pretend that this little scene took place somewhere in Court Duel, and that Vidanric enjoys a good soak every once in a while without the protection of his waterproof cloak. Enjoy.

_**Cassie**_

* * *

Meliara couldn't sleep. Too many thoughts crowded her mind, fighting for attention: Bran and Nee's coming party, Russav's continual flirtations, Elenet's curious silence, Tamara's recent plot against her. Most of all, Meliara thought about her Unknown, and how, as of late, she would wake in the morning with hopes of finding the familiar unmarked envelope on her table. She couldn't remember when she'd been so excited about receiving a simple letter. _But the Unknown's letters are more than that_, she argued with herself, _they were a courtship, one with pen and words rather than talk and touch._

Letting out something that sounded between a sigh and an irritated grunt Meliara swung her feet over the side of her bed and stood. The room swayed for a moment as her equilibrium returned. Walking over to the window, Meliara felt confined in her room. Her nightgown seemed to cling from sweat, her hair heavy as it cascaded down the back of her neck. Her legs felt weak from lack of exercise, something her life had lacked since she had arrived at Atharanel.

Meliara needed to escape.

Admiring the beauty of the moon that hung high in the night sky, her gaze traveled steadily downward until it rested on a second moon, one reflected in the water of the pool in the private courtyard that her window looked out on to.

A small smile eased across her features as she turned away from the window, and to her dresser. Pulling out new underclothes, and a tunic, Meliara had changed out of her sticky nightgown and into the fresh clothes in a moment.

Gently pushing her door open, she slipped into the hallway as the door snicked shut behind her. Keeping to the edges of the dark corridor, Meliara made her way down to the courtyard.

Meliara welcomed the cold night's breeze as it washed over her body, slowly wiping away her troubled thoughts. Walking out onto the dirt path that led to the pool, she looked up at the dark sky: no stars shined through the thick clouds that hung high overhead. That meant rain. Meliara hoped she would not get caught in a downpour. Continuing farther down the path, her bare feet not making a sound in the night, she came to a thicket of neatly trimmed trees. She knew that the greenery was meant to keep passersby away, but Meliara knew what she wanted to do.

Slipping in between the trees, along a path a gardener must have used while trimming the shrubbery, Meliara was careful not to snag her tunic on the stray branches. After a few more moments of maneuvering, Meliara came at last to the private area that she had looked down on to from her window on so many times. Out of the thicket, she noticed only a few more trees and bushes scattered the landscape around the pool.

She walked over to the pool, loving how the surface looked liked glass, a delightful shiver running through her body. Experience told Meliara that the water would be cold. Looking around to make sure no one had seen her stealthy –or at least she had tried to make it so–exit, she slipped off the top half of her tunic first. Her skin prickled with bumps along her bare arms, her undershirt failing to keep any of the cold out.

Shaking off the chill, Meliara stepped up to the water's edge, stepping first one foot, then the other into the water. Her feet and legs immediately protested the cold temperature as she walked farther in, and stopped when the water was at her waist. Pulling off her leggings, she felt a shiver course through her entire body; the thin undershorts now all that was keeping her legs warm. She threw the leggings back on the shore, joining her still dry tunic.

It took only a few moments for Meliara to adjust to the temperature of the water–she had been in colder when there were downpours and she'd gotten lost in her mountains back home in Tlanth. Almost immediately she felt a twinge in her heart, remembering her home. She'd lived in Tlanth all her life, and it was all she'd ever known.

Wading deeper into the water, Meliara ducked down and submerged herself completely in the pool, letting its gentle currents wash away the tension her body held. Everything was simple when she was in water. Time moved slower, and life just seemed simpler. Her life _had_ been simpler before she'd come to Court, before she'd stumbled into that cursed trap and into the clutches of the enemy. Her life had been simpler before she'd met Vidanric.

Rising to the water's surface Meliara sputtered water out of her mouth and ran her hands over her thick hair, now weightless in the water. Her feet had numbed in the water, her fingertips feeling slightly fuzzy from the temperature. Meliara welcomed the dullness that she felt in her body, welcomed the calm that passed through her. Treaties signed by feuding countries supposedly offered peace to both lands. A harpist's delicate notes meant to sooth the mind and body. But for Meliara, letting the water encompass and rock her in gentle waves was peace to her. This moment was peace.

Meliara moved to float on her back, fanning out her arms for balance as she moved them in a fluid motion, gently guiding her body in the water. Water spilled into her ears, taking away her acute sense of balance. She let her eyes close against the gentle whispering the water made as it washed up against her skin. The air was so quiet she could hear the steady beat of her heat in her ears, a natural rhythm to her.

All form of thought fled her mind and body as she floated in the water. She forgot about the neglect she'd been feeling because of all the time Bran had been spending with Nee. She forgot Russav's flirtations. She forgot the awkward silences she'd feel when around Elenet. Tamara's spite for her faded into the water around her. The fluttering feeling that formed in her stomach whenever she'd look at Vidanric sparring, riding into the courtyard on his mount, or his still undefined grey eyes, washed into the currents that surrounded her body.

The feeling of a warm touch surrounding her arms drew Meliara out of her calm. A familiar smell reached her nose, one that reminded her of her horses–she liked the smell. She wondered how she could feel such a warmth when she the rest of her body felt numb from the temperature of her water –but she kept her eyes closed, wondering if she had fallen asleep and was having a strange dream. Hoping her body would not sink, she felt her muscles relax from the warm touch that now wrapped slowly around both her arms. Then it withdrew.

Meliara was only let wondering for a moment where the warmth had gone when she again felt the touch on her temples and then realized that the warmth was coming from gentle hands, and fingertips. _A very strange dream_, Meliara thought as her vision dimmed slightly, even with her eyes closed. She drew a hand to her eyes and met a soft handkerchief: someone had blindfolded her in her dream. _But why?_ She asked herself lazily. _Because they don't want me to see them_, she guessed.

Meliara's thoughts fled from her again as she felt the warm touch again on her stomach. She reached with one of her arms and collided with the hand–too large to belong to belong to a woman. _A man, then_, she thought just as lazily as before. Meliara found her fingers interlocking with the stranger's, and closed around the knuckles. Her lower body dipped into the water as it refused to remain afloat any longer. She was scared she was going to drown because she still couldn't see, but felt a strong arm wrap around her waist for support.

_He must be tall enough to touch the bottom_, Meliara thought incoherently as she felt her body press lightly against the owner of the arm's. She didn't struggle against the embrace, but rather welcomed the new found warmth she felt against her own body. Thought finally did come together in her mind again with a crashing sense of embarrassment. She was indecent! But another thought overrode her alarm. Why did it matter? It was a dream. Her body felt weightless in the water as the arm continued to hold her, feeling the other arm slide around her waist.

A very strange dream, she thought.

* * *

The second half is coming, but I ended up writing too much to the point where I had to split it up. If you would like to see more, more fluff with Meliara and her mystery man please leave a review! I promise it gets better. 


	2. Sweet Dreams

Back again with the conclusion. For this I'm going on the fact that all the servants, at least Mora, knew that Vidanric had been writing to Mel during Court Duel, so yeah. That's all to say for now. Enjoy the finale.

**_Cassie_**

* * *

Meliara slowly lifted her hands out of the water and searched in the oblivion that was her vision for something to hold on to. Her fingers traced the outline of a face. She gently ran her hands along the curves that met her fingertips, feeling the shallow dip near the eyes, and the even more shallow laugh lines that graced his cheeks. The creases near his eyes and mouth told her that he was tired, and that his expression must have been void of emotion–she knew what emotions looked and felt like from her own outbursts. Finally coming to rest on his shoulders, Meliara locked her hands around his neck, thought fleeing from her mind once again. 

"This is a strange dream," Meliara said lazily, a giggle escaping her.

"Is it?" she heard the man whisper. The sound startled her somewhat–she didn't know her dreams could talk too! She tried to place the voice, but her mind refused to cooperate as she felt her legs numbing in the water again.

Meliara was about to answer him when she felt a raindrop on her nose. She looked up and wondered why she bothered when she knew she couldn't see because of the handkerchief. There she was, dreaming that she was blindfolded, with a man, in a pool, her entire lower body numb, and now it was starting to rain. She smiled at the situation as she felt more raindrops on her arms and face.

"I'm going to have a nasty cold in the morning," Meliara said to no one in particular. She heard her mystery man stifle a chuckle deep in his throat. It was then that she realized how close she was to him, close enough to feel the warmth from his breath.

After a moment she felt the numbness spread throughout her body as her head dipped in exhaustion. She must have been more tired than she thought. But how could she be tired? Wasn't she already sleeping? The questions dissolved in Meliara's mind as sleep enveloped all of her senses. She vaguely felt the man's other arm moving to catch under her legs and carry her out of her water. The memory of her entire body shaking from being wet and cold was hazy to her as well.

Meliara was already deep in sleep when her dream man carried her up to her chambers, nudging the door open and resting her down on the bed, pulling the covers up to her neck to make sure she would sleep warmly. Placing her tunic down on the nightstand, he wondered for a moment if he should remove the blindfold, but thought against it.

Vidanric glanced a final time at Meliara, smiling, then left.

* * *

Meliara woke the next morning to darkness, which scared her at first but something in the back of her mind told her it wasn't real darkness. Reaching to touch her eyes Meliara's hands ran over a familiar handkerchief, and she realized with a thudding beat of her heart that her dream last night was not a dream at all. It was real. That meant that the man was real too. 

Meliara's face heated with embarrassment as the events of last night came to her: going into the water, floating along the surface, being blindfolded, and her poor excuse of a conversation she'd had with a man who she had thought, up till now, was not real. She also realized, with a groan, that her head ached and she couldn't breath through her nose. Wonderful, she thought with a huff.

Sliding the handkerchief over her head she examined it carefully, hoping to find some clue of who her mystery man was. It was unmarked, and a dull grey-no clue as to who could have blindfolded her with it last night. Then Meliara looked down at her body. She was wearing her underclothes, which made the memory of the night before even more crashingly real. Glancing at her nightstand she saw her tunic, along with an unmarked envelope she recognized all too well.

She snatched up the letter from her Unknown and tore open the wax seal and read.

_Sweet dreams, Meliara._

That was all that he had wrote, and Meliara met the last sentence with another groan as she lay back down on to her pillow, her head already spinning with the task. But did that mean that it was her Unknown who had been with her last night? Of course, she told herself. It had to be. That made Meliara's heart race. She'd come to know the person on the other side of their correspondence better than she had come to know Savona.

Nothing beyond a simple embrace had gone on between Meliara and her Unknown, but she secretly hoped that she would discover his identity soon. It would give her comfort to know that her dream man had gone so far as to bring her back to her chambers, tuck her into bed as Meliara had noticed the covers so snug around her neck, and bid her goodnight without asking for anything in return, could in fact be, her Unknown. A man who made her laugh and who's letters she looked forward to always seeing on her table when she returned to her rooms.

A sharp rap on the door snapped Meliara from her thoughts as she saw Mora enter the room. She was carrying a tray of food that steamed as she set in onto Meliara's nightstand.

"You've a cold this morning. I brought listerblossom," Mora offered the cup to Meliara.

Shetook it gratefully and sat up again, slowly this time, and looked out her window. She thought back to the night before, and how her dream man had been able to stand in the pool. At least, she thought that was what happened. Meliara shook her head to try and clear her mind of the enveloping fog that threatened to put her to sleep for another good day.

Turning to her maid, she asked, "Mora, how much do you know about the pools in Atharanel? The ones in the courtyards, I mean."

Mora stopped what she was doing and looked at Meliara, an odd expression forming on her face-she'd expected something like this when she had picked up the letter this morning.

"Enough," Mora answered vaguely, "Why do you ask?"

Meliara bit her lip, but finally decided against doubt. "Do you know how deep that one outside my room is?" She nodded to her window, her listerblossom tea clutched in her hands for warmth.

Mora raised an eyebrow. She hadn't expected that question. "Near six feet, maybe a little shallower. They're mainly just for show, not meant to swim in," Mora answered, glancing up at Meliara's mess of a hair that had without a doubt gotten soaked the night before and not properly combed through.

Meliara nodded distantly, her mind elsewhere. She hadn't been able to touch the bottom--she was barely five feet tall! But her dream man...he had to be taller than six feet to be able to talk to her. Meliara groaned again into her tea and lay back down on to her pillow. That narrowed it down to about half the Court-and probably anyone a foot taller than her, which was quite a large number of men.

Mora smiled at her mistress, "Rough night, my lady?"

Meliara looked up at her maid, scrutinizing her gaze trying to decipher her expression. Finally she gave up. It hadn't been a rough night. It had been a rough swim. It would be a rough day. And the cause? A dip in cold pool water some time during the night.

_A _dip_, Meliara?_ She groaned to herself.

* * *

My little ficlet now complete. I hope you liked. 


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